This application is based upon and claims the benefit of priority from the prior Japanese Patent Application No. 2000-219445, filed Jul. 19, 2000, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a portable communication terminal which performs short range radio communication for ticket examination with a ticket examination apparatus when a user enters/exit a station, a place of event, or the like and a data transmitting/receiving method.
2. Description of the Related Art
For example, at a ticket gate in a station, an automatic ticket examination apparatus is installed, and a ticket or pass formed by magnetically recording an amount and the like on a paper or plastic sheet is inserted into the apparatus to be examined. The mechanical portion of the automatic ticket examination apparatus which mechanically conveys the inserted ticket or pass frequently fails. For this reason, an electronic ticket examination has been proposed to eliminate the need for this mechanical conveyance.
Recently, to realize electronic ticket examination, a method of using common mobile phones has been studied. In this method, ticket examination is performed by using the communication function of a mobile phone, and the fare of a ticket is added to the telephone charge of the mobile phone to make payment. In such a fare paying method using a mobile phone, a service provider must pay nearly 10% of the fare as a handling fee for the payment.
To spare the payment of this handling fee, a method of using a channel based on near-infrared light (IR: Infra Red) mobile phone has been proposed. More specifically, a mobile phone has an IR transceiver capable of communicating with a local IR base station. Since IR is light, an obstacle in-between interferes with transmission/reception. If, for example, the user blocks the transceiver with his/her finger while holding the mobile phone in his/her hand, communication cannot be performed.
There are moves afoot to equip a mobile phone with a communication function based on a radio communication scheme such as Bluetooth, as a short range radio communication function capable of covering only about 10 m, in place of IR. For example, it is expected that 60% of mobile phones will be equipped with Bluetooth by the year 2002. Likewise, it is expected that many personal computers (PCs), PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants), and the like equipped with Bluetooth will be on sale, and many users will use them.
Unlike IR, Bluetooth is a radio scheme, and hence communication is not blocked by an obstacle. In addition, since the specifications of a Bluetooth communication scheme are defined as global standards, telephones can communicate anywhere in the world as long as they are quipped with Bluetooth. There are two main communication schemes for mobile phones in the world: one is used in the U.S. (CDMA-One) and the other is used in Europe (GSM). Hence, mobile phones that can be used in Japan and the U.S. cannot be used in Europe. In contrast to this, Bluetooth allows communication anywhere in the world. In addition, according to Bluetooth, identification numbers are uniquely assigned to all transceivers produced in the world, and hence services can be managed by using two kinds of numbers, i.e., the Bluetooth identification number assigned to the mobile phone of each user and the identification number assigned to each user who uses the services. This makes it possible to provide services with a high degree of security.
A terminal capable of Bluetooth radio communication (to be referred to as a Bluetooth terminal hereinafter) becomes a master or slave depending on the usage of a service when it starts communicating with another nearby Bluetooth terminal.
If, for example, a PC is connected to the Internet through Bluetooth by using a mobile phone (or PDA) as a modem, the Bluetooth function on the PC side becomes a master, and the Bluetooth function on the mobile phone (or PDA) side becomes a slave. When a user wants to listen to MP3 music stored in the memory of a mobile phone (or PDA) with headphones via Bluetooth, the Bluetooth function on the mobile phone (or PDA) side becomes a master, and the Bluetooth function on the headphone side becomes a slave. In this manner, the Bluetooth function of the mobile phone (or PDA) becomes a master or slave.
When this Bluetooth function serves as a master, this Bluetooth terminal can communicate with another Bluetooth terminal by establishing a connection with it in response to an inquiry therefrom. When, however, the Bluetooth function is a slave, the Bluetooth terminal cannot serve as a master and communicate with another Bluetooth terminal.
When automatic ticket examination is to be performed by using a mobile phone (or PDA) having a Bluetooth communication function, a connection (radio channel) must be established between the Bluetooth function on the mobile phone (or PDA) side and the Bluetooth function on the ticket examination apparatus (ticket gate) regardless of which side is serving as a master or slave.
A mobile phone (or PDA) may be communicating with another Bluetooth terminal (for example, it may be communicating with headphones or a PC) at the time of ticket examination. In this case, since the Bluetooth function on the mobile phone (or PDA) side can be a master or slave, a communication connection cannot be easily established between the ticket examination apparatus (ticket gate) and the mobile phone (or PDA).
To facilitate the establishment of a communication connection between the ticket examination apparatus (ticket gate) and the mobile phone (or PDA), the simplest way is to suspend the communication connection currently established for the mobile phone (or PDA) regardless of the situation (a master or slave) on the mobile phone (or PDA) side.
It is very troublesome for the user to perform a special operation on the mobile phone (or PDA) to disconnect/terminate the connection at the time of ticket examination. In addition, since the necessity to disconnect/terminate a connection is unique to Bluetooth, it is difficult for the user to recognize the necessity of the special operation.
As described above, to perform automatic ticket examination by using a portable communication terminal such as a mobile phone (or PDA) having a Bluetooth communication function, a connection must be established between the ticket examination apparatus (ticket gate) and the portable communication terminal. For this purpose, the user must take the troublesome step of disconnecting/terminating the Bluetooth connection that has already been established for the portable communication terminal at the time of ticket examination. This imposes a great burden on the user.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a data transmitting/receiving method which can easily start data transmission/reception for ticket examination or the like by short range radio communication using a portable communication terminal without imposing a burden on a user, and a portable communication terminal using the method.
According to an aspect of the present invention, there is provided a data transmitting and receiving method applied to a portable communication terminal apparatus which communicates with at least one destination and a ticket gate, the method comprising: receiving a ticket information item via a public network to obtain a plurality of received ticket information items; storing the received ticket information items in a memory device; designating one of the ticket information items in the memory device to obtain a designated ticket information item; displaying the designated ticket information item on a display; establishing a first radio channel for the portable communication terminal apparatus to perform communications with the ticket gate which examines the ticket information item displayed on the display, in preference to other communications with the destination; releasing a second radio channel which is used for communicating with the destination, before establishing the first radio channel; communicating with the ticket gate via the first radio channel on the basis of the ticket information item displayed on the display.
According to an aspect of the present invention, there is provided a portable communication terminal apparatus which communicates with at least one destination and a ticket gate, comprising: a receiver which receives a ticket information item via a public network to obtain a plurality of received ticket information items; a memory device configured to store the received ticket information items; a designation device which designates one of the ticket information items stored in the memory device to generate a designated ticket information item; a display configured to display the designated ticket information item; a radio channel establishing device which establishes a first radio channel to perform communications with the ticket gate which examines the ticket information item displayed on the display, in preference to other communications with the destination; a radio channel releasing device configured to release a second radio cannel which is used for communicating with the destination, before establishing the first radio channel; a communication device configured to communicate with the ticket gate via the first radio channel on the basis of the ticket information item displayed on the display.